Upstate 101: How to Have a Vacation in Your Own Upstate House

  |  August 6, 2013
Traditional Porch by Edina Photographers Sethbennphoto

Another entry from local realtor and writer Susan Barnett.

For the past seven years, I have lived in houses with screened in porches. And not once, until this week, did I ever sleep on those porches.

What was I thinking?

I grew up visiting my grandmother’s summer house in Rosendale: a sweet, simple farmhouse with a magnificent second-story sleeping porch. It was lined with windows, all opened wide to the night air in the summer, and accommodated three or more twin beds plus a double. It was prime real estate for the kids in the family. So I can’t say I didn’t know how great sleeping porches are. I used to know things.

I have to attribute my sad deprivation of summer porch sleeping in recent years to a lack of imagination and a stultified adult brain.

I had a glimmer of recognition when visiting a charming, rustic Victorian summer cottage in July. The owner spends his summers sleeping on a porch very much like the one I remember.

“It’s heaven,” he sighed. “I go to sleep with the katydids and wake up with the birds.”

Must be nice, I thought to myself.

Kevin and I were sitting on our screened in porch a few weeks later when he turned to me and asked a simple question that changed my summer.

“Why don’t you ever sleep out here?”

Why indeed? It’s screened. It’s spacious. It’s available to me every night.

“Because we don’t have a bed out here,” I replied.

“Then let’s bring out the futon.”

Fast forward ten minutes, and we’re wrestling the miserably uncomfortable black futon out of his music studio, setting it up on the porch, and I’m happily rearranging furniture, finding blankets and planning to spend a night camping without leaving home.

I didn’t make it through the night.

The night air was wonderful, hearing the chirping of the katydids was soothing, and my dog Violet thought this was the best adventure she’d ever had – outside all night AND she was allowed to sleep on the bed. We listened to the barred owls hoot and drifted off to sleep.

This, I told myself, was living. A vacation in my very own home.

But by four ayem, my spine and hips were howling…every wooden slat beneath the futon was digging into me and I had to surrender. I gathered up my pillows and headed back to my bed. The sky was just beginning to lighten.

But the seed has been planted. I’m looking at amazing swinging porch beds and other beds that might allow me to take advantage of that amazing summer bedroom I never realized I had.

If you’re looking for a country house, remember this: you want a screened in porch.

Read On, Reader...